


Sprung a Leak

by Opaque_Mistake



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Gastown, Gen, Implied Immortan Joe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-28 00:10:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13259493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Opaque_Mistake/pseuds/Opaque_Mistake
Summary: The People Eater has a problem on his hands.Gigadumpster secret Santa fic for Tyellas, who wanted genfic digging into the mind of one of the warlords.  I chose everyone's favorite creepy post-apoc accountant, and served him up with a side of Gastown culture and a couple of wasted polecats.





	Sprung a Leak

**Author's Note:**

> Headcanon that the Gastown polecats serve dual purposes as pole-mounted road soldiers **and** refinery security (climbing pipelines and such).

The People Eater pushed back his worn velvet chair and rubbed his temples. He had sketched out the production numbers six times over and it was becoming clear. Gastown had an oil leak. And he needed to take care of it fast, before Joe came nosing around in his business. That was the last thing he needed. The Immortan had been prickly lately, Richard felt almost as if he was being probed for weak spots. His health. His command of his men. The security of the refinery complex. Little questions here and there, but he could feel the intent behind them. Joe was scheming to have one of his wretched sons take charge of Gastown. 

Hmph… Over my dead body, you bastard. Richard thought to himself. 

“Imperator Cardinal!” he called through the speaker tube, “Get in here, and bring the boys. We have a problem.” 

Within the afternoon he had a team assembled. Three of his most senior Gastown imperators, all experienced petroleum engineers, and two trusted Polecat lieutenants, as adept at shimmying up pipelines as they were diving from the sky. Once they had all settled into his office and removed their masks and respirators, he began to lay out his case. 

“Refinery production is lagging, boys, but we’re still pumping plenty of crude. I haven’t heard any complaints about the shanties flooding with petrol or whatnot, so I don’t think it’s accidental. I’m pretty sure someone’s siphoning off our guzz. Have any of you seen anything suspicious?”

“Among the wretched?” Imperator Forky wondered, “What’s it to them? They’re too busy in the refinery to make off with it.”

It was a fair point. None of the wretched living inside the Gastown moat had any need for guzz. They lived and died saturated in oil. Crude, refined, smoking waste… didn’t much matter to them. Their lives were brutish, short and decidedly free of motorized vehicles. It had to be someone from the outside, one of the engine cults desperate for guzz, and grown weary of losing their vehicles to the flamers at the gates. 

The Eater eased back in his seat, shifting the dead weight of his bad leg. He flicked at the numbered wheels of the odometer chained to his chest. “No, no… it’s got to be going somewhere. Has anything been seen out in the oilfields?” 

Imperator Napalm was in charge of security operations in the sprawling, polluted wastes to the north and east of the refinery complex itself. “Nothing my men have uncovered. I can double up the patrols…”

“Pffft…” The Eater exclaimed derisively. He didn’t want any news of shortages getting around through his people. It would make Gastown look weak, but worse yet, word might get out to Joe. “… no use in looking for what may not be there. Let’s run a once over of the refinery itself before we go out beyond the moat. But keep your eyes sharp on patrol.”

He turned to the two polecats. The ‘cats served a dual purpose for the refinery, their agility made them useful in repairs and inspections all over the sprawling complex, as well as an intimidating addition to the flamers that held border security. These two were a mixed pair, Asphalt was a hulking, dark eyed woman with a burn scar covering half her scalp… a souvenir from a crude oil explosion that had hit her shanty and killed the rest of her family. She shared command with Phenol, a slight, soft-spoken older man who could slip into the tiniest spaces with the agility of a child. They looked an odd couple, but they had earned the respect of their crews and the Eater had always found them loyal. 

“Get out there and give the pipelines a once-over, the two of you, not any of your men. Focus on the perimeter, let me know if you find anything unusual.” The Eater gave his attention back to the Imperators, “Keep an eye out for anything funny, but stay quiet about it. I don’t need this getting out to the other Warlords.”

* * *

The fumes permeated every millimeter of the clapboard bar in the shanties, as if the makeshift building itself was soaking in tar. The perimeter search had not been going well. It had been days and days of searching, but the two polecats hadn’t found anything they noted as unusual. Phenol had crawled through the tangles of pipelines, and Asphalt had climbed every smokestack on the edge of the moat and they’d both come up blank. They had spent the last few hours drowning their failure in smuggled Bartertown moonshine. Huffing guzz was the intoxicant of choice for most Gastown workers, but there were a few speakeasies catering to those who needed to keep their reflexes intact. Well, relatively intact… at least the crude whiskey didn’t cause petrol shakes.

Asphalt pulled off her respirator and leaned over the battered chrome bumper that served as a bar, and slurred at the pup fetching drinks, “Another one, round… fer… bothofus.” 

“No, no… no more fer me…” Phenol demurred. “I’m gonna… I think I’m gonna be sick… “ He stumbled towards the latrines out the back door of the shack. On the way he tripped over the outstretched legs of a masked flamer who jumped to his feet, picked the slight polecat off the floor and slammed him against a post. 

“What do you think you’re playing at, ya wanker?” the flamer growled. 

Phenol moaned queasily in response, but Asphalt stepped in, “Set ‘im down Bruce. Pick a fight with someone yer own size.” 

“Like who? You, little lady?” Bruce joked… despite his menacing tone, him and Asphalt were old friends and stood nearly eye-to-eye. “What business you got…” his voice traveled off as he saw the expression on Asphalt’s face and turned just quickly enough to toss Phenol to the floor before he vomited. “Fuckin’ polecats, can’t hold your shine, can ye?”

The pup reappeared with Asphalt’s fresh drink and she shot it down in one gulp. “Cheers, mate.” She held up the empty glass triumphantly, and sat down at the small table with the flamer. “Come on, Bruce, leave him be and have a drink on me.”

Phenol pushed himself to his feet and stumbled out the back of the shanty, out to the open pit latrine where he puked up the rest of the rancid moonshine. He sat down, defeated, in the shadow of the bar, gazing at the slender crescent of moon peeking through the smoke and smog. This job had thrown him for a loop. He thought he knew the twists and turns of the refinery like the back of his hand, and if he wasn’t finding anything, worse yet, the two of them weren’t finding anything… well… maybe there was nothing there. His boss had it wrong, maybe the numbers were lying. Phenol wouldn’t know the difference, the figures were as good as Greek to him. 

While he was sulking, a ruckus was building in the bar. Suddenly, a man was thrown out the back doorway, slipped on an oilslick and fell, mumbling and cursing in the pidgin Russian of the Buzzards. Phenol shrunk back into the shadows as Bruce yelled something out at the man and then slammed the sheet of metal that served as a door. The man looked up to make sure he wasn’t being watched from the bar, and then crept through the shadows towards the petroleum moat. Phenol followed, careful not to make a sound. 

A meter or so from the edge, the man shimmied up one of the pylons that supported the entrance bridge, and then just disappeared into the darkness under the bridge. Phenol waited for him to reappear, but soon figured out that the man had slipped away. He started climbing the pylon himself when he heard the telltale sound of an engine echoing in the distance, off beyond the moat, followed by the familiar roar of the flamethrowers lighting up in the guard towers. 

Phenol picked his way through the debris back to the bar, where he found Asphalt falling out of her seat on the losing end of a drinking contest with one of the flamers. He got her attention and she stumbled over to the door. 

“I found our leak.”

* * *

“They’ve got a tank, you say?” Richard ran a contemplative finger over his nipple ring. “Good work.”

“Hidden in the debris that makes up the bridge pylons. It’s fed by a simple leak in the refinery, they put a drain in the low point where the diesel was puddling. Otherwise, the boys on maintenance would have caught it moons ago.” Phenol had perched himself on the arm of one of The Eater’s chairs, while Asphalt traced his words out on their boss’ map. “The pipeline itself follows the underside of the bridge, and but they’ve got a stopcock on the tank that they have to turn manually to empty it into their tanker.”

“Hmfph… Buzzards, I should have known.” They had been turning up at the gates a little more frequently lately. With legitimate goods and eager to trade to be sure; the Russians were top notch scavengers and he had figured they’d come across a fresh cache of old world treasures. He had to admit, they were clever, taking advantage of his fondness for baubles to steal right from under his nose. “How big is the tank?”

Phenol wasn’t good with numbers, so he simply shrugged at Asphalt, “Probably about 1000 liters,” she answered, “No idea if they’re diverting that full amount though, or if that’s just the capacity tank they could get.”

He frowned down at his ledger, and ignored the two polecats as he clicked some beads on his old world abacus and scratched some notations in the margins with the barest stub of a pencil. He twisted some disks on the perpetual calendar that he kept at hand on his desk. Grunting thoughtfully, he returned to his ledger.

“Looks like they’re taking close to that. 850-900 liters a month.” It was little more than a drop in the bucket, compared to overall production. But month after month it accumulated. “I’d place a bet that they’re draining it off under cover of the new moon… they’ve found some sort of blind spot in our outer defenses.”

Richard blessed the two polecats with a satisfied smile… He could present this to Joe as a fait accompli, treachery uncovered by his shrewd mind for numbers and then crushed by Gastown’s own military might without any involvement from the Citadel. 

“Go fetch my Imperators, the men we already have on the case… and your counterweight teams as well. We’ve got a trap to set, my boys. And not long to set it.” 

The damn Buzzards might even make for some decent BBQ.


End file.
